Customer Success - Scaling a Customer Success Team

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What does your customer success team org structure look like?

3 Answers

Ben Terrill

Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 19

We have our Customer Success organization broken into 2 groups - Strategic Customer Success and Scaled Customer Success. In the Strategic Customer Success group I have managers who are responsible for a team of CSMs and also serve as the DRI on customer success for one or more products. CSMs n......Read More

2205 Views

What's your framework to prioritizing needs/deliverables when you're the first customer success manager at a company establishing the function?

4 Answers

Rebecca Warren

Eightfold Director, Customer Success • January 18

Been there, done that! IMO, it’s pretty simple – start with who is screaming the loudest and why. Take what they are frustrated about, ask them to prioritize their needs, and then see about knocking them off, one at a time. You can’t fix everything overnight, but get a win under your belt, and th......Read More

1789 Views

Do you have any advice for a junior who is a first customer success hire?

5 Answers

Ben Terrill

Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 19

Firstly, good choice! You have picked a hot career and I only see CS becoming more prominent and important over the next decade. * Be curious. Take time to understand your customer’s business - one of the best parts of this job is the exposure you get to so many different types of busines......Read More

1209 Views

What are the key processes you'd set up when expanding the customer success team from 1 to multiple people?

2 Answers

Conor Holmes

Confluent Director, Customer Success EMEA • May 19

This will depend on how fast the team is expanding. 1 to 3 people will need a different approach than 1 to 10+ Generally, you will want enough processes to quickly get a team member up to speed. Yet, if you are adding only one more in the near term, onboarding could be done via shadowing and clo......Read More

445 Views

What is the best way for CS reps to manage relationships with accounts where the "champions" are always changing and the value of your business is always having to be restated to knew employees?

4 Answers

Ben Terrill

Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 19

This is a tough one. I generally view these as “lite sales cycle” which it sounds like you do as well. If the account is large enough - a multi-level engagement strategy extending 1-2 management layers above your main champion would help. I would also ask why these champions are changing - is ......Read More

971 Views

How do you communicate customer success updates and activities to the rest of the company?

4 Answers

Ben Terrill

Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 19

One of the most important responsibilities of CS is to ensure that we are sharing the stories and insights we hear from our customers with the rest of the business. To do this, I like to hold monthly presentations where CS presents our feedback from customers. These events are attended by product......Read More

1468 Views

As a hiring manager, what do the best customer success candidates have in common?

11 Answers

Manil Vasantha

Oracle VP Customer Success Engineering & Solution Architecture • January 18

The best customer success candidates: • Communication skills: The ability to communicate with customers and all stakeholders clearly and effectively. • Customer-centric mindset: The ability to put oneself in the customer's shoes and understand their needs, pain points, and goals. A genuine pa......Read More

1617 Views

If your customer success team has only one or two people responsible for covering multiple products with complex features, how would you recommend dividing workload in the short-term so as best to support long-term growth and expansion of the team?

1 Answer

Conor Holmes

Confluent Director, Customer Success EMEA • May 19

This is undoubtedly a challenging scenario. Here are recommendations for smaller customer success teams to follow in this situation. 1. Understand the highest priorities for the business and how that translates to positively impacting customers. There are typically many tasks that CS ......Read More

437 Views

What are the best ways to get ahead of potential churn, to see the signs and stop it from happening?

3 Answers

Jessica Broderick

Yext VP, Client Solutions Management, North America • April 13

The first step to knowing if a client is at risk of churning is to identify the potential warning signs: * Lack of Engagement * Client Turnover * Service/Support Issues * Economic Climate * Poor Performance * Low CSAT/NPS Scores Once you understand what to look for you can better assess r......Read More

612 Views

What's the most effective way to scale a customer success team beyond the first customer success manager?

5 Answers

Rebecca Warren

Eightfold Director, Customer Success • January 18

I’ve been at Eightfold for just over 2 years now, moving over to customer success from a 20+ year career in Talent Acquisition, so remember that my experience is unique vs. a traditional CS career path. I was the first CSM to join the EF team, reporting into a leader who had created the group fro......Read More

1887 Views